Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar Wants to Put Justin Bieber in Jail

Straight from the music and movie industry lobbyists, across Amy Klobuchar’s desk, and now pending before the Senate, Amy Klobuchar wants to put people in jail for posting a video of a performance of copyrighted material (i.e., that video of you singing “My Sharona” in the shower). Like how one of the biggest artists on the planet (Justin Bieber—ask your kid) got his start:

Hey, it’s not my thing, but I want this kind of video to exist; it’s this kind of thing that makes the Internat great. Amy Klobuchar wants to kill it.

Klobuchar says the bill would only apply to people who make money from posting performances of copyrighted material. Not so. The bill covers any video that is played 10 or more times, if the copyright owner says the value of those “performances” exceeds $2,500 or if the “fair market value” of a license to perform the material exceeds $5,000. Given what filesharing cases are going for these days, that shouldn’t be hard to allege. And who knows what YouTube makes off those ads it shows next to your video, anyway. Any guess what 36 million+ views is worth? That’s what the above video has gotten.

To be fair, she’s just making a bad law worse. But it’s quite likely she’s doing so at the behest of the music and movie industry. If so, she’s sold out, and no matter what the bill says, that means it’s time for her to go. Sellouts don’t belong in Congress.

Sam Glover is a lawyer and the founder and Editor in Chief of Lawyerist.com. He also works with lawyers on motion practice and appeals, and is President of the board of directors of HOME Line, a nonprofit Minnesota tenant advocacy organization.